It was a spur of the moment cast on inspired by Twisted Squirrel's sweater on Instagram. I loved the marled effect and the statement sleeves. And the Teenager liked it too!
The jumper is knitted in a chunky gauge using 4 strands of 4ply yarn held together. There is a lighter weight version available called AquaMarlite and a big cardi too.
Using 4 strands gives an incredible marled effect and allows for some blending of colours. It's the same technique I used in my knitted Garter Squish blankets.
Given that I've knitted two Garter Squish blankets in 2 years my 4ply leftovers are quite depleted. So I cracked open some of the hand dyed yarn I've been stashing... mostly from trunk shows that we've had in the shop.
They included yarns from Old Maiden Aunt, Rusty Ferret and My Mama Knits.
Some are highly variegated, others more semi solid.
it's helpful to open up the hanks of yarn to get a better idea of all their colours.
In combining the colours I aimed for a dark bottom to a bright/light yoke. To achieve this I wound the larger 100g balls into smaller balls. I also tried to replicate the colour combination on the sleeves so needed to have separate balls set aside.
As this was a jumper that needed to fit and given I had no frame of reference I did a gauge swatch.
I made a gauge swatch in the round using this video tutorial from Elizabeth Smith. It gave me an accurate gauge swatch quickly - but you do need spare yarn as you can't reknit the swatch yarn after.
The jumper is knitted from the bottom up. First the body, then two sleeves. You then put the body and sleeves onto a longer needle, marking the sections with stitch markers before working on the top of the jumper.
I loved how the raglan sleeves turned out and the way it sits around the neckband.
The balloon sleeves are easy to work... but do end up bigger than the body!
The pattern itself is very clearly written with lots of guidance for picking a size. And it came out a perfect fit for the teenager.
I would highly recommend it if you're looking for a statement jumper. Working with all the fabulous hand dyed yarn was a treat and made it a quick knit... it's quite addictive!
And you don't need to use 4 strands of 4ply. The jumper has a chunky gauge so you could use a single strand of chunky yarn instead. The Rico Melange Chunky would give you a multi coloured effect.
You can find AquaMarline by Park Williams on Ravelry and we have a great selection of 4ply yarns too.
